


Fragments of a time long past

by sometimesivegotanidea



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Drabbles, fragments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimesivegotanidea/pseuds/sometimesivegotanidea
Summary: Nightingale didn't talk much about his past, but sometimes he mentioned it... in passing.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	1. Smoking

I stepped outside on to the terrace of the hospital and was greeted by Nightingale standing in the shadows with something that looked suspiciously like a cigarette.

"Didn't take you for a smoker, sir."

"I'm not..." he paused and looked somewhat guilty at the cigarette between his fingers "...not since the fifties. My brother-in law was rather insisted on the dangers of it, not that we believed him at the time" He grinned. "Don't tell Abdul. He'll have a fit". And rightly so... Chest infections, remember. I didn't say that out loud.

"That depends on whether you have one left for me", I said instead. I was not really a smoker either - more along the lines of the casual-drunk-party-smoker, but after what we had just dealt with I really graved one, even if only so I would smell something different than what we had found in the sewers.

He handed me an old-fashioned silver cigarette case, because of course he wouldn't carry around his cigarettes in the (these days quite off-putting) packaging. The case was decorated with an engraved "GN" in Art Nouveau letters. When I took it, I could have sworn that I felt a wisp of gunfire and smoke. It was weak and faded, but still there.

"Whom did that belong to?" I studied the engraving.

"My oldest brother George... probably a present from our father. He quite believed in the strengthening properties of smoking". He frowned.

And probably died of lung cancer in the end, I didn't ask though - didn't want to push my luck on the "Nightingale pre-2011"-streak.


	2. Downton

"I need your full name for this, and your current fake birthdate" I said while typing in the booking details for Nightingale's first trip abroad since - as I assumed - 1945. 

He wanted to go to Germany and meet the Chief of the KDA. Britain might be leaving the EU, didn't mean we couldn't try to form an "European Magical Union" instead. It had been the Germans' idea - the title.

Nightingale had naturally insisted on taking the train as it was supposedly much more comfortable. I on the other hand assumed that he was just intimidated by the modern flight regulations where you had to pass metal detectors, angry policemen, could only take small bottles of liquid on board, and couldn't just take your staff into the cabin (he was blissfully unaware that you had deal with most of that at St. Pancreas as well). Also, I wasn't so sure whether he'd ever taken a commercial flight in his life. I wondered whether he would insist on taking a ship to New York as well.

"Thomas Arthur Cecil and that would be 16th of June...1967... I believe. Remind me to get a new one soon" He said without looking up from his crossword.

"Seriously? Cecil... With that name you'd fit right into Downton Abbey". I said before my brain could stop me.

"Considering that the Crawley girls where all born around 1890 to 1900, I believe you got the period right" He laughed. Obviously Molly wasn't the only one watching it. "Even though we had a much smaller staff, and not half as much drama going on".


	3. Gershwin

I don't exactly remember how I ended up in the Folly's music room, probably while aimlessly strolling around in what I a while ago had read was called a _‘dérive’_. So, science! I knew the room – or was it a salon? - was there, but I'd never really paid it much attention. Having a musician for a parent is really the best way to quite effectively keep you from ever learning an instrument for yourself. Future parents take notes! 

But today the piano in the corner piqued my interest. If only for the fact that, opposite to every other piece of furniture in the room, it wasn't covered with a dust sheet - and I was quite sure, that it had been covered the last time I had passed by... a year ago when I'd shown Caroline around the house.

The grand piano wasn’t your standard black shellack, but instead a beautiful brown Art Nouveau Bechstein with inlays made from several tropical woods. The lid was opened and revealed worn and yet gleaming (Molly probably) ivory keys. A music book lay on the note stand. When I picked it up, I could see that the book was falling apart at the spine and the corners were frayed. The title gave it away as an old copy of Georg Gershwin's Song book and a look inside confirmed that it had been printed in 1933. 

While leafing through it I noticed quite a lot of notes (numbers mostly) in, what I recognised now as Nightingale's rather messy handwriting, as well as a much neater handwritten note on the first page. Usually, I despised people who wrote personal notes into books, but this one looked old and was obviously intended for my governor, so I was more curious than annoyed. 

_My dearest brother, a very happy 33rd birthday to you. I came upon this book by chance and was reminded of your visit to New York last summer when we went to his concert at Carnegie Hall. I'm looking forward to your rendition of no.5. All my love, Edith_

Perhaps I'd catch him playing one day. And I did. Two months later in the evening when I was supposedly at Beverley's place, I heard someone play a jazz classic.


	4. Never

In retrospection I couldn't remember exactly how we ended up playing ‘never have I ever’ at the pub and not at all who on earth had managed to get Nightingale to join in. Perhaps it was group pressure considering that Seawoll had started it all. A week later my conspiracy theories had gotten so far as to assume, that Seawoll had started it solely with the purpose of getting blackmail information out of everyone present. He succeeded by the way.

I remembered though that ‘never have I ever’ - as per usual - had gotten quite weird very quickly (mostly thanks to Seawoll) - though as it was a work environment nobody had yet dared to ask anything to sexual yet - and that Nightingale was already at the bottom half his second pint... not so many things left you didn't do after almost 120 years it seemed. Skinny dipping, driving while under the influence, taking heroin (aka. ‘cough medicine’)… you name it.

It was Stephanopoulos turn. "Never have I ever... done something illegal for which I could have ended up in prison for". At first nobody took a sip. Coppers don't like admitting that they - just like everybody else - cheat on their taxes, take drugs or do not pay their TV licence. Even less so in front of other policemen and -women.

Nightingale frowned slightly and then asked: "Which you could end up in prison for _today_ or at the time the crime was committed?" Stephanopoulos replied with a sly smile: "at the time... obviously".

He sighed slightly then winked at her and replied "well in _that_ case I really hope I only have to drink once..." and finished the pint. The realisation dawning on most faces was quite amusing to watch, the utter incomprehension on the others as even better. Most of them didn't know that Nightingale was steadily approached 120 and had already been very much alive one year before his current supposed birthdate. Some were just daft. 

In the corner of my eye, I saw Seawoll quickly taking a sip as well, obviously hoping that nobody had seen him. Nice try - I wondered what he'd done, probably glared some poor constable to death.


	5. Language

"What the bloody hell is 'rozzer' or any of those other words supposed to mean?", asked a young DC, while she stared uncomprehending at the graffiti on the wall opposite the crime scene. But so far everybody had only shrugged. It was Soho after all - or rather the back streets of Soho, the front was far to gentrified for graffiti.

The entire text was - at first sight - gibberish to me. It looked like English, but most of it didn’t make any sense. Thankfully Guleed had already typed the text into Google and we'd gotten so far as to identify the language and translate some of it thanks to the rather helpful glossary on Wikipedia, though we weren't entirely sure yet whether we'd gotten the full meaning of it or the punchline. 

At that moment I heard the Jag turn up behind us, signalling the arrival of my boss. 

We had just finished showing Nightingale around the crime scene and I had given him my preliminary assessment when he noticed the wall on the opposite building. 

"Oh my…”, he looked somewhat bemused.

"You can read it?", Guleed asked, and we looked at each other. By our facial expressions you could have seen that we came to the same conclusion at pretty much the same time.

"Well, I'm a bit rusty, but I think I got the pun, it’s quite funny actually. I just don't think it has anything to do with our crime scene, but rather with the bar in the basement".


	6. Elgar

"Could you switch the channel, please."

I startled. We were driving to a crime scene out in the countryside - with the Folly being the designated department for "weird bollocks" all over Great Britain and possibly the entire British Islands – and I’d dozed off. 

For once Nightingale had actually switched on the radio - not BBC Radio 4, but Radio 3, and so far we had listened to several concert pieces some which I knew, most I didn't – thanks to my father my knowledge on music was pretty exclusively focused on jazz. 

But even I recognised the offending piece as one of the most overplayed classical pieces in British (Empire) history. 

I turned the dial and switched to BBC 4. The Jag had an old radio where you actually needed to know the frequency of the station and couldn't just hit a button. Thankfully, I had memorised it by now.

I still asked him what annoyed him about the piece, assuming that it being extremely popular wasn't the main reason. 

"You know the piece?" he asked, giving me a short glance, eyes still on the road. I nodded.

"I have been forced to listen to this particular variation for the past 70 years at every Remembrance Day, at every other funeral service, and every BBC program dedicated to the wars. I refuse to listen to this piece and most of Elgar's compositions any more than I have to these days for the sake of my sanity", he’d raised is voice a bit.

He paused and added slightly calmer and with a slight twinkle in his eyes: "should anybody ever have the audacity to play the piece at _my_ own funeral, I might actually consider returning as a revenant to haunt them for the remainder of their days".

"I'll keep that in mind, sir." I grinned. "But thankfully - should I outlive you - I’ve already got a bit of experience in that field. I've dealt with Mr. Punch, I’m pretty sure I could deal with you as well".

"Certain?"

"Well, I wouldn't bet on it", also I really didn't want to find out how menacing an ethically challenged and ghostly version of Nightingale would turn out.

"What a shame. But then I couldn't really profit from winning anyways, now could I."


	7. Scandal

"You look remarkably like your uncle", I said to Nightingale while leafing through a chronical of the Folly from 1915. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and we were seated in the Mundane Library. I'd found the book while browsing. The old photograph showed the Folly's council at the time and I had spotted Stanley Nightingale almost immediately. I had never seen a picture of him before but his similarities with my governor were quite striking even in a black and white picture. His eyes were different, but besides that he looked like a balder, older version of Nightingale, but with a rather impressive moustache. He held a top cane - it looked remarkably like one I knew.

"Ah...", Nightingale leaned over my shoulder to get a look at the photograph. "Well, that might have to do with the fact, that he was quite probably my biological father rather than my uncle". The corner of his mouth switched up into a slight smile.

"What? How?" I exclaimed - not sure whether I was more surprised that he was the product of an affair or that he'd just told me about it.

"Well..." he hesitated slightly... obviously he'd just come to the realisation what exactly he'd just said.

"Oh come on, sir. You can't just drop a bomb like that and then not finish the story", I exclaimed. 

He paused shortly, then said: "I can't be absolutely certain, paternity tests weren't a thing back then, but the circumstantial evidence is rather incriminating. For one my parents already lived in separation at the time - with my 'father' maintain an quite active social life in the City and my dear mama enjoying here time at our summer house on the Isle of Wight. I remember my dear uncle being a constant companion of hers during my childhood".

"And your father didn't object to it? If you're really born 'out of wedlock', wouldn't he have known?", I put 'out of wedlock' in air quotes and Nightingale actually laughed.

"To what end? A scandal like that at the timenwouldn't just have ruined her reputation, but his as well. They were married after all. 'A man who can't keep his own woman in line'", he didn't use air-quote, but you could hear it in his voice. "And with his brother of all people. It would have damaged his reputation just as much, perhaps even more with his political opponents tearing him apart for his moral failings. It was a lot easier to just keep up the façade. And I was only the fifth son, so it probably wasn’t really worth the hassle”, he finished.

"But people must have known about their separate lives?"

"I'm sure about it. But as it was with many things back then, as long as you weren't too obvious about it and there was no damaged party, it wasn't acknowledged in polite company. So, when my father was seen around town with his current mistress, they wouldn't mention it in front of mama. And quite surely Uncle Stanley was _just helping out_ at the house in his brother's absence".

"Victorian hypocrisy", I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, in my experience people are just as hypocritical today."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've might have gone a bit far with this one, but hey... it's fanfiction.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time in a while that I wrote something. English isn't my first language, so please be kind.


End file.
